


Precipice

by Memoriam



Category: The Darkness
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Memoriam/pseuds/Memoriam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A calm moment before the sickening thud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, too unfocused to be disgusted by the dead skin that came away from her lips. She scrubbed her hand against the towel absently as she leaned against the sink to peer at herself in the mirror. Her hair had come loose of its pins, and her tossing and turning had wrapped it into a Medusa's nest of knots that was going to take forever to brush out in the morning. Her dull brown eyes swam in circles of dark flesh that were going to take a hell of a lot of concealer to cover up.

 

Sighing, she turned the tap on, and let it run for a moment to give the rust a chance to work its way out before cupping her hands for water to splash her face with. Her eyes ached, felt hot and swollen, like she'd been crying; her throat was sore, as if she'd been yelling. She snorted, looking at the mess she'd made of herself; she'd probably just slept with her damn mouth open again. She twisted the tap closed, slowly, to keep it from squealing, and watched for a moment to make sure the water swirled its way around the cracked bowl and down the drain. The last thing she needed was to have to fight a clog first thing in the morning. She reached up to pull the chain and turn the light off, then turned and began to shuffle back to bed.

 

The hell of it was, Jenny couldn't even remember what the nightmare was about; she never could, even though they'd been driving her crazy for the last week. Not that she was any stranger to bad dreams; but there was usually, you know, a _point _to it. All of her teeth would fall out because she was worried about asking her boss for a raise. Something would be chasing her down dark alley ways because she'd been avoiding the landlord until she could scrape the rent together. Something would drag her under the bed and tear strips out of her because that nutcase from the basement had been lurking by the mail boxes, giving her the creepy eye. It all made sense, at least sort of; she could think it through, once she'd calmed down a little bit, and at least figure out why it was happening. That made it better, kind of.

 

Not these, though. She'd actually woken up sore from the first one, her muscles had been clenched so hard; she'd had little prints in her palms from where her nails had dug into them. None of them had been that bad since—not until tonight, anyway—but it was starting to get bad enough that she was really worried. She didn't think she was nuts, but then, did anybody? They were just  _dreams. _ Even asking Jackie to spend the night had been a big concession—not that she'd told him why—but she'd thought maybe she just needed some company. She rubbed at her jaw, still aching from the way her teeth had been gritted; there went that theory. If this kept up much longer she'd be wetting the bed, just like she had back at St. Mary's; maybe she ought to get a night light.

 

But, then, it wasn't as if she really needed one. Her apartment had a breathtaking view of the downstairs deli's neon sign, and its sputtering, sickly red light was her constant companion. She'd had a blanket nailed up over the studio's single window to block it out for awhile, but she'd always thought that was pretty trashy; then winter had come and it had gotten cold enough that she'd actually needed it, so she'd taken it down, and had never got around to replacing it with anything. It was currently wrapped around Jackie's head like a cocoon.

 

She lowered herself carefully onto the bed, trying to keep the springs from squeaking; not that he really would have noticed if they did. She could have woken up screaming and probably not bothered him. The man had always slept like a corpse, even when they were kids; not a good habit to have at the orphanage, but it didn't seem to have screwed him up more than anything else had. He didn't so much as stir when she settled her weight and stretched her legs out; he was balled up on the other side of the bed, as far as he could get from her, completely dead to the world.

 

It was weird, and she'd been going back and forth about whether or not she should be offended about it; but he did it when he was asleep, it wasn't like it was deliberate, so she'd kept her lip zipped for the time being. When he was up, he was as cuddly as could be—well, mostly—sort of—but the instant he really conked out, bam, he would crawl away and curl himself up so tightly she was amazed he'd never sprained anything doing it. She'd even found him on the floor a couple of times; but he seemed to find it completely normal, would just get up and go about his morning like nothing unusual had happened, and so she felt weird about bringing it up.

 

Having to squeeze into her tiny little twin bed was probably something of a come-down for him, anyway; but, then, it wasn't exactly as if he were inviting her over to Paulie's, either. Not that she probably would have gone much if he did. She didn't like taking the ferry; she didn't like Paulie's place, either. It wasn't her kind of thing; made her feel small, cheap, like she was going to dirty the carpets or something. She didn't like the way Paulie smiled at her; didn't like Paulie, period, and that made her feel bad, too. He was always so scrupulously, perfectly polite to her, it was like... like the way people talked slowly, and really pronounced their words, when they were talking to somebody who didn't understand English very well. Like she was just some feral street creature that couldn't really be trusted to act like a human being.

 

And maybe she was. There wasn't a reason for it, not anything she could put her finger on, he just—weirded her out. Which really was a crappy thing for her to let happen. He'd never been anything but nice to her, and he'd been  _so_ good to Jackie, even if that had never quite made sense to her. She'd written it off as jealousy for a long time—and she had been, as much as she'd tried to keep it to herself; talk about a get-out-of-jail free card!—but she really didn't think it was, not after all this time. If Paulie and Jackie's dad had been such great friends, why had it taken Paulie fourteen friggin' years to come looking for him?

 

But he had, and that was the important thing. She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly. She really could not imagine what Jackie would be like if Paulie hadn't been around to teach him how to behave, get him involved in a real job; she didn't dare to. He was a good guy—none better—but there was no denying he had a deep-down mean streak that went on for miles. Even now he still turned up with scabs on his knuckles half the time. She didn't even ask, any more; he'd at least gotten to the point where he was kind of sheepish about it, which was  _definitely _ an improvement. Some of the conversations they'd had back in the day were still enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck. It was like Jackie truly, honestly, had  _not _ understood why that kind of stuff was wrong. If he'd had a chance to go further down that road... if he'd had to scrabble like she had, made the kinds of decisions she'd had to make...

 

...she didn't like thinking about the choices he would have picked. She really didn't.

 

Jenny reached out and laid a hand on what little of his head was exposed from beneath the blanket. His hair was damp with sweat, but the little bit of skin her fingers brushed was chill, and clammy to the touch. She withdrew, alarmed; he was  _cold. _ She touched him again, gently, and raised a hand to her throat. Maybe that's why it was sore; maybe they were both coming down with some kind of bug. She hoped not. As much of a grouch as he was about it, it would suck if he were sick on his birthday; you only turned twenty-one once.

 

Well, if she was getting sick, sitting up all night and being a spaz about it wasn't going to help anything. She slowly stretched herself out beside him, and curled up to him as best she could.

 

Everything would look better in the morning.


End file.
